an agitated tone, went on to relate how
Charles had besought the forgiveness of Providence for all the sins and
errors which he had committed, and added that he would remember all who
had rendered him happy by their love and obedience in every prayer which
he addressed to the Being to whom the remnant of his life should be
devoted, the ex-singer's breath came quicker, her small hands clinched,
and the question whether she had failed in love and obedience before he
basely cast her off forced itself upon her mind, and with it the other,
whether he would also include in his prayers her whom he had ill-treated
and mortally insulted.

These thoughts lent her features so gloomy an expression that it would
have offended the Emperor Charles's ardent admirer if he had noticed it.
But the scene which, with tears in his eyes, he now described absorbed
his attention so completely that he forgot everything around him and, as
it were, gazed into his own soul while picturing to himself and his
listener how the monarch, with a pallid, ashen countenance, had sunk back
upon his throne and wept like a child.

At this spectacle the whole assembly, even the sternest old general, had
been overwhelmed by deep emotion, and the spacious hall echoed with the
sobs and groans of graybeards, middle-aged men and youths, warriors and
statesmen.

Here the young man's voice failed and, weeping, with unfeigned emotion he
covered his agitated face with his handkerchief.

When he regained his composure he saw, with a shade of disappointment,
that Barbara's eyes had remained dry during the description of an event
in which he himself and so many stronger men had shed burning tears.

Yet, when Barbara was again alone she could not drive from her mind the
image of her broken-down, weeping lover. Doubtless she often felt moved
to think of him with deep pity; but she soon remembered the conversation
to which she had listened in the apartments of the Bishop of Arras, and
her belief in the genuineness of those tears vanished.

CHAPTER XV.

The winter came and passed. Instead of leaving the Netherlands, the
Emperor Charles remained nearly a year in Brussels. He lived in a modest
house in Lion Street and, although he had resigned the sovereignty,
nothing was done in the domain of politics to which he had not given his
assent.

Barbara, more domestic than ever before, was leading a dream life, in
which she dwelt more with her beloved dead and her chil